CSC Smart Business UK Edition August - Social studies
Social studies
The LEF has launched a virtual identity self-assessment tool, which follows on from a recent report on the opportunities and challenges presented by social media in the workplace
The effects of consumerisation and social media are increasingly evident but many people are unsure what these changes mean on both a personal and a professional level. For the enterprise social media offers great potential for deeper employee engagement, productivity growth and more effective marketplace interaction, but harnessing this potential is dependant on the individual and their willingness to participate.
To help people better understand the changes brought about by our growing use of social technologies, the Leading Edge Forum has launched a virtual identity self-assessment tool. The online tool is designed to show an individual how their social media attitudes, behaviour and skills compare to those of their peers.
The new self-assessment tool follows on from a paper written by LEF research associate Brinley Platts entitled Developing Resourceful Humans – Opportunities and Challenges in Social Media. The report examines the impact of social media on the workplace from the point of view of human development and resourcefulness. Much like the virtual identify self-assessment tool, Platts uses a neurological model designed to help people understand their relationship with the world in terms of environment, behaviours, competencies, values, identity and purpose.
There follow excerpts from the Brinley Platts report. Clients of the Leading Edge Forum can download the full report here.
Online environment
Getting online and being connected takes you into a virtual re-creation of your traditional world that is massively bigger than the physical world in which we have each grown up and learned to manage. It is largely free of geographical and time constraints. It consists potentially of everyone you have ever known and it can also include people you don’t know but whom you respect and admire, as well as people you don’t know but who know you.
Many people love the freedom and connection this brings (over 600 million Facebook accounts are strong evidence of this). However, many others find the online environment challenging and intimidating. While a lot of thought and attention is being given to those who want more consumer technology at work, little is being given to those who do not.
These issues may grow as we invest in taking our professional networks online and the importance of our virtual worlds continues to increase. Not everyone needs to be an early adopter, but it is best to get into the online environment as early as you can. It is important that employees feel that their online work environment supports their professional needs, goals and expectations.
Online behaviour
Most people have no difficulty in selecting and applying appropriate behaviour in most situations. But online, many of us do not have adequate experience or behaviour strategies. In many cases acceptable behaviour standards have not yet been developed, and different generations within the workplace are behaving very differently.
In many companies the situation is compounded by there being no clear lines of responsibility for policy-making. In an increasingly interconnected world the boundaries between family, friends, classmates, colleagues and associates will increasingly blur. Even the most self-confident people can find themselves unsteady in these rapidly changing areas, especially when we are still learning how to behave. Does your firm’s online environment make employees feel comfortable learning and adopting new forms of behaviour, even with the inevitable mistakes this will involve?
Online capabilities
Consumer technology is specifically designed to be user friendly and easy to adopt. This is equally true of the hardware, the communications software and the social media applications that connect us to the world. But connecting is not the same as being effectively connected; registering for an account on Facebook or LinkedIn is not the same as being active on them.
The pace of technology advancement creates a constant need and incentive to learn and build skills. The integration of easy-to-use consumer technology with particular job requirements reveals deeper underlying differences between a traditional professional and one who is ‘double-deep’: able to use technology and social media to amplify their professional skills, reputation and competitiveness. Few companies would say that they have enough of these people, who are often the key to innovation and effective IT usage.
Online values
A person’s values are an important determinant of what they do, or what they will be inclined to do, in any given circumstance. Connecting with others through social media presses us to rethink and often revise our real world views. For example, being effective online requires openness, transparency and engagement, values which can easily come into conflict with our usual values of privacy and modesty.
Beliefs are closely linked to values and help us to decide what is really happening; a belief is a sense of certainty about something. Because we have them we can be stubbornly resistant to change and we become very upset or disoriented if our certainties are challenged.
Changing these beliefs is perfectly possible, but is it ethical? And who should be responsible? Companies and individuals need to think through what they really believe are the implications of modern social media, and do their best to reduce any ‘disabling’ perceptions.
Online identity
Our identity determines how we see ourselves in relation to the larger systems that surround us: our communities, our professional groups, and so on. It also determines how we want to be seen by others. At work we spend years building and reinforcing our personal reputations and achievements. Social media enable us to project our identities globally. This is both an opportunity and a challenge, and each of us must decide the level of our willing engagement.
New ways of working through social media are very different from those of previous generations of technology. In the early days, using a PC appealed to more private and introverted personalities, while people-centric, extroverted employees frequently complained about having to spend so much time staring at screens.
Social media are just the opposite, appealing to those who want to be outgoing and to connect, with the more private people often uneasy and reluctant. Many of them will need help to change themselves at the identity level before they can fully engage. Helping individuals build their online identities will in time yield benefits from more effective social media participation.
Ontology or spirit
Ontology is the realm of meaning, purpose and spirit; going beyond our image of ourselves into our vision of the larger human experience. This field is sometimes referred to as a collective consciousness.
Consumer technology has the ability to connect everyone and everything on the planet and to harness the collective power of our thinking to ensure that life on Earth continues to flourish. This is how some of the more visionary and charismatic leaders of the Web 2.0 world are thinking and speaking, and it is clear that literally millions of people are willing to donate their time and energy to various online pursuits that are often deeply important to them.
Getting your employees to think in these terms and to love working for you confers huge benefits. Ask yourself how technology can strengthen your employees’ sense of your company’s mission and values. Challenge your people to ask themselves how technology can help them live the life they want.
The case for caution
There are many who challenge the enthusiasm of social technology proponents. Consumer technology is held to be just too distracting for use at work, and many of us feel we already have too many communications technology options to keep up with. Though there are many positive stories, the overall business value has yet to be decisively proved.
These criticisms cannot be ignored, but similar concerns have been raised at almost every stage of the IT industry journey. We are clearly in the mass-market phase of social media, a phase from which no information technology has ever turned back. Those who resist adoption may reduce their short-term risks, but will likely find themselves on the wrong side of history, which can be the biggest risk of all.
Clients of the Leading Edge Forum can download the full report here.
If you are not a client, but would like to learn more about this topic and the wider LEF Programme, visit the LEF website or contact Kate Taylor at ktaylor4@csc.com
A Virtual Identity Self-Assessment tool is now live on the LEF website. Complete the simple survey for a snapshot of how your social media attitudes, behaviour and skills compare to those of your peers: http://lef.csc.com/virtual-identity-assessment
Learn more about CSC’s work in: Social technology, employee engagement